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Google bows to great firewall of China

Search giant under fire for censorship

Google's Chinese version of its search engine has drawn criticism from human rights organisations

Google has launched a
Chinese version
of its search engine, but is censoring key search items which it believes will
annoy the Chinese government.

The move comes after a year of deliberation and means that Google joins
Microsoft and
Yahoo in using servers
hosted in China. This will give it a significant speed advantage over uncensored
search engines.

Such external sites have to pass through the 'Great firewall of China', a
network of government servers used to determine what Chinese internet users are
allowed to see.

"This was a difficult decision for Google. On balance we believe that having
a service with links that work and omit a fractional number is better than
having a service that is not available at all," said the company
on
its blog.

"It was a difficult trade-off for us to make, but one that we felt ultimately
serves the best interests of our users in China."

The move has generated dismay and anger among human rights organisations and
internet users alike.

"The launch of Google.cn is a black day for freedom of expression in China,"
said worldwide press freedom organisation
Reporters Without Borders.

"Like its competitors, the company says it has no choice and must obey
Chinese laws, but this is a tired argument.

"Freedom of expression is not a minor principle that can be pushed aside when
dealing with a dictatorship. It's a principle recognised by the
Universal Decla
ration of Human Rights and features in the Chinese national constitution
itself."

Reporters Without Borders wrote to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin
in May last year asking whether they were going to censor their tool for the
Chinese market, and expressing concern at some recent Google decisions.